22 Answers

I have a Nook that I love. What sold me on it was the fact that you can download library books for 2 weeks and it has wi-fi. Also B&N have free Friday e-books. I’m on my way there now. I’m thinking about buying the Nook Color and passing this one on to my sister. Just do your comparsion shopping to decide which one will be best for you.

I have an iPad. If I had to do it over again I would still chose an iPad because with an iPad you have iBooks, a Kindle, a Nook, eBooks, and a few more
that I’ve chosen not to use. It
saves me from carrying around
a few dozen books a day like I
used to! It did cost a little more, though. I wanted to buy a Kindle before the iPad existed. I probably still would if I didn’t buy my iPad simply because of the selection of books. If I can’t get a book with iBooks it is usually available from Amazon.

Have you seen this? I don’t know if it’s at all helpful, I just saw it in the siblings. My sister gave me a nook for Christmas, because of 87 situations I haven’t had a chance yet to fire it up, but I’ll be following this…

I recently got a Kindle 3G with wifi & 3G (which is free via whispernet) & am really digging it. For the price, you can’t beat it! It’s neat to have the 3G as a backup in case there is no wifi around; plus, unlike the iPad, you don’t have to pay (a bunch) extra for it (since Apple doesnt allow phone tethering or similar).

I am not as familiar with the Nook so I cannot comment there. Continuing on, the Kindle also works well poolside, in the daylight & under most lighting conditions (with the exception of the dark but that can be easily remedied by a nightlight or light accessory). It’s very difficult to read my iPhone outside (if not impossible) & i imagine the same holds for the iPad.

The Kindle features a plethora of books, feeds, articles, periodicals + so forth. You can also highlight, save notes, sync across multiple devices, bookmark + so forth. Lastly, it’s a pretty durable piece of engineering & unlike the iPad won’t break easily. I’ve gone through approx 5–7 iPhones since their first introduction + recently discovered that my 4G cracked in the back (!) despite having been in a case – guess they are making the back panel glass as well! I can’t imagine using the iPad on any cardio equipment @ the gym for fear of dropping + breaking it as i manipulate the screen + try to read.

I probably should have mentioned that the Nook is only for sale in the US, so that kind of limits my options a bit. I did read online that Borders has a reader as well called the Kobo, which I’m assuming is the same as Indigo’s Kobo. Does anyone have any info on that?

Also, @GracieT – I really can’t afford to buy an iPad, nor can I really justify its purchase seeing as how I have a laptop and smartphone already.

As one who sits behind a computer screen all day, the last thing I want to do in my free time is stare at a back lit LCD screen. The e-paper display makes for a remarkably book like experience. Further, because it only uses energy when the page refreshes, if you have the wireless turned off one battery charge will last for weeks. Plus, its great to be able to carry your entire library with you in less space than it takes to carry one traditional paperback. Also, having instant access to the book store is nice if you should find yourself stranded somewhere and wanting some new material to pass the time.

On the down side, unless a book comes with pre-defined book marks or hyperlinks from the table of contents to each individual chapter, it is difficult to just directly navigate to a particular chapter, and since page numbers differ depending on what size font you use it is also not possible to just turn to a particular page. Of course, you do have the option of setting your own bookmarks and then turning directly to them, which helps if you are using the book for reference. You can also search the book for key words and phrases, which you can’t do with a regular hard copy.

Don’t know much about the nook, but had somebody tell me that they had one and were going to switch to the kindle because it was easier to use (don’t have any details on her complaints)

I have a Kindle and I love it. It’s easy to use. There are Kindle apps for most smartphones and even for laptops. I have the Kindle app on my Droid and it will sync with my Kindle, so I can continue reading my books even if I forget to bring my Kindle somewhere.

I got a B&N Nook for Christmas. I love it overall. The things I like are the e-ink display (it is super clear), the ability to load your own ebooks (have to be epub though, but caliber converts almost any format to epub), and the color navigation touchscreen. The only complaint I really have is that the battery life, while not terrible, isn’t as long as I thought it would be. After a full charge, at about a half hour of reading the bar goes down already, and that is in airplane mode without using the touchscreen too much. I don’t think I’ll ever read a physical book again since I got this!

My hubby bought me a Pandigital for Christmas, which is somewhere between a Nook and an iPad. It’s from Barnes and Noble, and does way more than books. It plays music, movies, games and has wifi. It’s even got it’s own little facebook icon to jump on right from the main menu, LOL.

I do have to say, though, that’s it’s been a little “buggy” and I’ve had trouble importing SD cards. The actual internal memory isn’t that hot, but you’re supposed to be able to load music, photos and movies and anything else you want on an SD card and simply insert it, but it’s not reading the cards.

All I’m looking for is a reader – I have a laptop, a Blackberry and an iPod so I don’t need it to do anything fancy. And B&N product isn’t going to do it for me, either; they don’t ship their stuff to Canada.

Still, I thank you for your answers – they might be helpful to others for whom the Nook is an option :)

Love my Kindle (I was an early adopter, have had it for 2.5 years I think). Amazon has an int’l version..my friends in Venezuela use/love their Kindle, too.

The only one I’d caution you to not consider is the Borders e-reader b/c I hear they are experiencing technical issues AND Borders is apparently about to go into bankruptcy / has had massive lay offs of their IT & tech support.

@geeky_mama – I’m not sure that I could get the one from Borders anyway; it’s just that it seems to be the same one that I could get from Indigo (which is our big book chain up here). I’m kind of leaning toward the Kobo so far, and if I were to get it, I’d get it from Indigo.

Wow, Indigo looks wonderful..their website is leaps & bounds better than Borders’.
That said, you might want to google a bit on “Kobo reader issues” or see links like these forums.
I’d heard people were unable to adjust fonts to larger sizes and something about file types (maybe it was PDFs?) on their Kobo devices—but these user forums will give you a more updated view of what’s “fixed” and what remains a headache on the Kobo.
If I were in your shoes I’d base it on where I spend more money..
I was already buying a lot from Amazon, so the Kindle was a no-brainer. (And, like I said, I got it early days.) But, if I lived and shopped more in Indigo territory..I could definitely see the benefit of their Kobo…as they’ll be around irregardless of Border’s expected demise.

@geeky_mama – Thanks for your input. Indigo is pretty great – I worked there for 6 years and there’s one around the corner from my apartment :)
But yeah, you’re right – I’ll look into the issues people have been having etc. before I buy for sure.

Does a Droid X count? With the appropriate free apps, I can read damn near any format on a pocket-sized device with a still-legible screen. Something I have yet to see from Apple; the iPad is too big while the iPhone and iPod Touch are too tiny.

Most of the e-reading I do is PDF copies of 8½×11 RPG books, and even then I find myself turning pages and switching books faster than an e-reader allows. A laptop is nearly as portable, allows for easier multiple tabs and thus easy cross-referencing while being lighter and less bulky than a dozen 300+ page hardcovers,

Accordingly, I personally have no real use for an e-reader. Yeah, it might be nice to carry a 1-pound tablet with a 9” screen instead of my 4-pound laptop with a 13” screen, but it would not be worth paying almost as much for a limited device as I paid for my far more functional laptop, or my more practical car. Does anyone know of an e-reader with a large color screen for $50 or less?

@Seelix, I just purchased the low end Kindle, and see that it will be transformational. It’s like reading a paperback book. The fact that it’s not backlit makes it easier than reading on the computer. I read a great article on cnet comparing the Kindle, Nook, and iPad. Two people at work bring Kindles in all the time. One has the regular size, but with G3, and the other has the bigger DX size. I opted just for the $139 wi-fi version, and since 6:30 tonight, have gone through most of a PG Wodehouse novel. The jury will be out as to whether or not passing up the G3 was a mistake.

Thanks, @BarnacleBill. I actually ended up getting a Kobo from Indigo the other day. I really like it so far; it has wi-fi and was only $149 Canadian. It doesn’t have all of the features that the Kindle has, but I have other devices for that other stuff. I like that I can read PDFs on it, too – a lot of the works I’m studying in school are free online in PDF format, and I can create my own PDFs of study notes or whatever.